4 ms·

Here's my counter-prediction: 5 years from now, both Facebook and Techcrunch will be as relevant as MySpace is today.

philjackson 17y ago
Not that I disagree necessarily but what are you basing that on? A wish? A hunch? Myspace never tried to touch the entire internet like this.
- sunchild 17y ago
  Fair question. I base my opinion (and it's an opinion) on history. I'm a relatively old man. I've been hearing about technologies that are going to take over the world for decades, and none have delivered for more than a few years. I remember when Altavista was supposed to be the beginning and end of search. I remember when Palm was the final word in mobile devices. I remember when Friendster was THE social network to rule all social networks. I remember when Hotmail was the be-all-end-all email. I remember when Geocities was going to rule the Earth from horizon to horizon. I remember when Yahoo! was synonymous with the Internet. I remember when Kozmo.com was going to replace the governments of all civilized nations. I remember when Boo.com had a bulletproof business model and first-mover advantage. I remember when Go.com was going to be the portal to our shiny new future. You'll have to forgive me for being a little skeptical. Sites like Techcrunch have been serving up this kind of myopic nonsense to the eager echo chamber for as long as I can remember, and they're rarely correct. None of them saw Google coming until it was too late. None of them told me that Apple was going to be the 7th largest company and a dominant player in music and mobile devices until Apple was the 7th largest company and dominant in music and mobile devices. No, it was all about revolutionary "game-changers" like Pointcast or WebTV or RealNetworks or something else that had a legitimate period of success but did not, in fact, have the lasting impact that was promised by sensationalist publications.
  - nl 17y ago
    None of them saw Google coming until it was too late. Umm... yes they did. From 1998: "Yes, there is a better search engine While the portal sites fiddle, Google catches fire. ... There is a better way to build a search engine. And a Silicon Valley start-up company with the unlikely name of Google.com is showing the way." http://www.salon.com/21st/rose/1998/12/21straight.html http://www.salon.com/21st/rose/1998/12/21straight.html (Yes, it's Salon, not TechCrunch - but it was 1998.) Wired did similar articles. Here's one from 2003: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/google.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/google.html None of them told me that Apple was going to be the 7th largest company and a dominant player in music and mobile devices until Apple was the 7th largest company and dominant in music and mobile devices I'm sure they didn't use those words. But here's a prediction from 2008 (by Gartner!!!!) which talks about a $225 shareprice: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/26/morgan_stanley_40_of_college_students_plan_to_buy_macs.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/26/morgan_stanley... More broadly, I'm not sure what your point is. Of course predictions are usually wrong. But the point of Techcrunch isn't the predictions, it's the analysis behind them. Often that's wrong, but the details of why their analysis is wrong is often where the interesting parts of the technology industry lay.
    - sunchild 17y ago
      Yes, you definitely missed the point.
      - sunchild 17y ago
        Just to be clear: the point is that wild speculative hype is rampant. The fact that they are occasionally correct is probably more a function of probabilities than legwork or rational thought.
nl 17y ago
Why? At least Techcrunch provided some reasoning. Your prediction is worded in a way that makes it hard to argue with, because "relevant" is so subjective. I know a lot of artists find MySpace VERY relevant. However, to attempt a rebuttal, taking the Facebook case: If Facebook is to become less relevant than it is now I would argue it's growth would have to stop, or at least slow down. According to the linked article it is currently accelerating, and usage of Facebook APIs OUTSIDE of Facebook is increasing enormously. Growth like that doesn't just stop, unless there is some external factor. So far, Facebook have proven themselves to be reasonable technically skilled, so I'll rule out technical problems. It's possible some kind of legal issue could slow them (privacy lawsuits or something?). However, lawsuits take such a long time to play out that it would probably be at least 2-3 years before any negative verdict against Facebook would make them change what they are doing, and even then it won't shut down the site. If Facebook have 2-3 years more sustained growth it would be unprecedented for them to shrink from half-a-billion users to something less relevant than MySpace in another 2 years. Another good counter-argument is the likely-hood of an IPO in the next 5 years. Apparently, Facebook had $700 million in revenue last year, and should do $1.1 billion this year (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/03/02/facebook-made-up-to-700-million-in-2009-on-track-towards-1-1-billion-in-2010/ http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/03/02/facebook-made-up-to...). If they IPO'ed now, with a P/E ratio of 20 (Google & Apple = ~24, Microsoft = ~ 17), then they'd be a $20 billion company. That buys a lot of relevance. EDIT: Note that is a revenue figure, not an earning (as pointed out below), so the numbers are wrong. I'll leave it here, though, because the point is more important than the numbers - if (when) Facebook IPO's they will raise a LOT of money.
- marciovm123 17y ago
  I think you confused P/E ratio - the E stands for earnings (profit), not revenues. Facebook's P/E ratio is almost certainly negative at this point, but they are growing so fast that P/E ratio is not a good way to predict their market cap.
  - nl 17y ago
    Umm yeah. Fair point. I agree it's pretty crazy to try & predict this, but still... If they have profit margins similar to Google, then they'd still be a $7 billion company (and I'd argue their P/E will be much higher when they float)

Not that I disagree necessarily but what are you basing that on? A wish? A hunch? Myspace never tried to touch the entire internet like this.

sunchild 17y ago
Fair question. I base my opinion (and it's an opinion) on history. I'm a relatively old man. I've been hearing about technologies that are going to take over the world for decades, and none have delivered for more than a few years. I remember when Altavista was supposed to be the beginning and end of search. I remember when Palm was the final word in mobile devices. I remember when Friendster was THE social network to rule all social networks. I remember when Hotmail was the be-all-end-all email. I remember when Geocities was going to rule the Earth from horizon to horizon. I remember when Yahoo! was synonymous with the Internet. I remember when Kozmo.com was going to replace the governments of all civilized nations. I remember when Boo.com had a bulletproof business model and first-mover advantage. I remember when Go.com was going to be the portal to our shiny new future. You'll have to forgive me for being a little skeptical. Sites like Techcrunch have been serving up this kind of myopic nonsense to the eager echo chamber for as long as I can remember, and they're rarely correct. None of them saw Google coming until it was too late. None of them told me that Apple was going to be the 7th largest company and a dominant player in music and mobile devices until Apple was the 7th largest company and dominant in music and mobile devices. No, it was all about revolutionary "game-changers" like Pointcast or WebTV or RealNetworks or something else that had a legitimate period of success but did not, in fact, have the lasting impact that was promised by sensationalist publications.
- nl 17y ago
  None of them saw Google coming until it was too late. Umm... yes they did. From 1998: "Yes, there is a better search engine While the portal sites fiddle, Google catches fire. ... There is a better way to build a search engine. And a Silicon Valley start-up company with the unlikely name of Google.com is showing the way." http://www.salon.com/21st/rose/1998/12/21straight.html http://www.salon.com/21st/rose/1998/12/21straight.html (Yes, it's Salon, not TechCrunch - but it was 1998.) Wired did similar articles. Here's one from 2003: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/google.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/google.html None of them told me that Apple was going to be the 7th largest company and a dominant player in music and mobile devices until Apple was the 7th largest company and dominant in music and mobile devices I'm sure they didn't use those words. But here's a prediction from 2008 (by Gartner!!!!) which talks about a $225 shareprice: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/26/morgan_stanley_40_of_college_students_plan_to_buy_macs.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/26/morgan_stanley... More broadly, I'm not sure what your point is. Of course predictions are usually wrong. But the point of Techcrunch isn't the predictions, it's the analysis behind them. Often that's wrong, but the details of why their analysis is wrong is often where the interesting parts of the technology industry lay.
  - sunchild 17y ago
    Yes, you definitely missed the point.
    - sunchild 17y ago
      Just to be clear: the point is that wild speculative hype is rampant. The fact that they are occasionally correct is probably more a function of probabilities than legwork or rational thought.

nl 17y ago

Why? At least Techcrunch provided some reasoning. Your prediction is worded in a way that makes it hard to argue with, because "relevant" is so subjective. I know a lot of artists find MySpace VERY relevant. However, to attempt a rebuttal, taking the Facebook case: If Facebook is to become less relevant than it is now I would argue it's growth would have to stop, or at least slow down. According to the linked article it is currently accelerating, and usage of Facebook APIs OUTSIDE of Facebook is increasing enormously. Growth like that doesn't just stop, unless there is some external factor. So far, Facebook have proven themselves to be reasonable technically skilled, so I'll rule out technical problems. It's possible some kind of legal issue could slow them (privacy lawsuits or something?). However, lawsuits take such a long time to play out that it would probably be at least 2-3 years before any negative verdict against Facebook would make them change what they are doing, and even then it won't shut down the site. If Facebook have 2-3 years more sustained growth it would be unprecedented for them to shrink from half-a-billion users to something less relevant than MySpace in another 2 years. Another good counter-argument is the likely-hood of an IPO in the next 5 years. Apparently, Facebook had $700 million in revenue last year, and should do $1.1 billion this year (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/03/02/facebook-made-up-to-700-million-in-2009-on-track-towards-1-1-billion-in-2010/ http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/03/02/facebook-made-up-to...). If they IPO'ed now, with a P/E ratio of 20 (Google & Apple = ~24, Microsoft = ~ 17), then they'd be a $20 billion company. That buys a lot of relevance. EDIT: Note that is a revenue figure, not an earning (as pointed out below), so the numbers are wrong. I'll leave it here, though, because the point is more important than the numbers - if (when) Facebook IPO's they will raise a LOT of money.

marciovm123 17y ago
I think you confused P/E ratio - the E stands for earnings (profit), not revenues. Facebook's P/E ratio is almost certainly negative at this point, but they are growing so fast that P/E ratio is not a good way to predict their market cap.
- nl 17y ago
  Umm yeah. Fair point. I agree it's pretty crazy to try & predict this, but still... If they have profit margins similar to Google, then they'd still be a $7 billion company (and I'd argue their P/E will be much higher when they float)